beto issues 吴松皓; @betoissues@mastodon.online

I wish professors would distribute PDFs instead of PPTXs

When the iPhone launched, all the cool apps were on the desktop, and you had to live with shitty web apps on your mobile.

Nowadays all the cool apps are on the mobiles, and you get shitty web apps for the desktop.

So a friend of mine who hoards computer parts and books mentioned to me that he has an old Russian book on #COBOL.

Apparently it contains a line that goes something like "don't try to make your #code indecipherable to make yourself irreplaceable. Stalin knew what to do with people who make themselves irreplaceable."

#programming #coding

the company that made the software for my self-driving car went bankrupt and it's now incapable of moving because it has drm that requires access to the company's servers

my self-driving car got hit with ransomware and it refuses to stop going until i pay up :/ i'm already halfway to nevada. i just wanted to go the drug store :/

my self-driving car's navigation algorithm keeps driving me places i've already been to, 'in case i missed it' and altering my route so it will go past more billboards

So here’s one of the main reason why I’m still playing video games from 1990.

When I talk about being a "software engineer," I do so intentionally, to put the patina of engineering ethics on discussing what I do. I do my absolute best to design and build ethical systems.

One of the things that bothers me in a visceral way is that most people aren't software engineers, they are, to create an artificial nuance, software developers. They build and design systems without codifying the ethics to express the core values of humankind in them.

You see this a lot with web developers and app developers, especially in the start-up space, and ESPECIALLY in the financial application space, trying to build MVPs that wow share holders by how lean they can make their monetized Skinner box.

It is my working opinion that this is a non-trivial component to how we ended up with an internet and computing ecosystems that largely serve the greater evils of capitalism.

Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.

Email is just sending plain text files from one computer to another, it's not that complicated. I should be able to figure it out with all three of my brain cells.
— @manton

whats a kobolds favourite programming language?

no its not cobol...

its ruby!